April 2010
this ain't livin': Lost: The Package *spoilers* →
In which I also muse on differing modes of communication, and television portrayals thereof.
March 2010
“All this requires me to live in the “double consciousness” described by W.E.B....”
– Tasha Fierce, Guest Blogging at Shapely Prose
Telegraph: Men owe women for 'creating beer'... →
Yet Miss Peyton said that up until 200 years ago, beer was considered a food and fell into the remit of women’s work. It was only then that men began drinking it and it became what is considered a very male drink.
Miss Peyton has conducted extensive research into the origins of beer for a new book, and discovered to her surprise that a woman’s touch was found on beer...
CityPages: Michele Bachmann asserts health care... →
Whether the court would take an expansive, or restrictive, view of the Commerce Clause to accommodate the individual mandate remains to be seen. People who oppose the mandate should not be 100 percent confident the courts will strike it down, Barnett said. Similarly, people who support the law should not be 100 percent confident that the mandate will be upheld.
Justine Larbalestier: Teenagers & Reading →
Let me take numbers one & two first and point out the bleeding obvious. Not all teenagers read fiction. Of those that do read fiction, many are not reading YA at all. A sizeable proportion of those reading YA are 12 or younger or 20 and older. The age range of YA readership is every bit as broad as any other genre. Yet almost every discussion of the genre acts like it’s read only by...
Sigh
[redacted]: So they go to the hospital, and all these illegals are getting everything for free! It's just not fair!
me: I find that highly unlikely, given the anti-immigrant attitudes in this country.
[redacted]: No no! They were illegals and they were getting everything paid for! Free medicine, free surgery, for everything! And they weren't even working! And the hardworking people, they have to pay!
me: *eyebrow*
[redacted]: The illegals ruin everything! The government takes everything from the working people and gives it to the illegals!
me: *cries*
this ain't livin': Transgender Day of Visibility →
Why must we be visible to exist? ‘Visibility,’ to me, skates dangerously close to ‘I’d like to look in your pants to satisfy my curiosity about what’s there.’ It reminds me of the many people I have met who are tremendously proud about ‘always being able to spot a transgender,’ as though being trans* is so obvious that you might as well wear a giant sign. It makes me think about the people who...
Hey, Tumblr
Is there any particular reason that you are stripping out the links when I grab pullquotes? It’s kind of annoying to have to manually code them back in, so I was wondering. Also, is there any reason why, in particular, you have disabled common keyboard shortcuts like Cntrl+I and Cntrl+B? Or is that just me.
Gavin Phillipson at Comment is Free: London: the... →
In recent months a sustained campaign by the media, NGOs, foreign commentators and some scientists has seemingly convinced many that English law is uniquely draconian, a massive threat to free speech and scientific debate, that it has no proper public interest defence, doesn’t protect expressions of opinion and that, as a result, London is infested with libel tourists.
While it’s...
So, You Know
I recently had this experience out in the world where I was trying to point out that this supercool dude whom everyone loves is kind of a creeper. A major creeper, even! And that I was uninterested in attending events at which this person would be present because I do not enjoy being creeped on or around, and furthermore that I would warn other potential creepage targets to watch it around this...
Sonoma County closes HIV, family planning clinics →
“Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the...”
– Stephanie Clifford, writing for the New York Times
Bitch Magazine: Feminist Intersection:... →
Now I’ve got to give it up to all the righteous feminist people out there who are representing and are vehemently trying to be intersectional - as in, this isn’t only about sex or gender. But I would argue, in my life experiences thus far, that many of the same mistakes from the second wave ARE being made and that just because we’ve got some new and hot language like...
To the Multiple People Who Have Sent Me Bizarre...
Fair use.
Look it up.
Who Has A Fix For This?
Has anyone else noticed of late that a lot of websites have enabled a script which inserts a link when you copy excerpts for fair use and that this seems to be increasing? For example, when I’m grabbing pullquotes for links, I’ll copy and paste, and when I paste in, lo and behold, a ‘read more…[link]’ has appeared.
This really bugs me (and I think it’s a shitty...
ArtVoice: Your Budget, Your Economy →
New York City is still struggling to rebuild after the devastation of the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Without a substantial recovery in employment in the most populous area of our state, New York State government is going to be spending more and more of its scarce resources on entitlements, leaving state government with little ability to pay anything more than the basic bills so long as state...
this ain't livin': Adult Inaction on Statutory... →
Content Warning: Post contains discussions of suicide, rape, rape culture, bullying, and abuse.
There was a culture of tolerance for bullying at Phoebe’s school. Some of the same students charged in this case were reported earlier and administrators failed to act. Now, they say:
The school has convened an anti-bullying task force, which met Monday, to help determine how to deal with bullying....
Alibi: An interview with a New Mexico nurse who... →
You mentioned that the mission to win the hearts of the detainees might have been more symbolic than anything else. Were there any projects that you felt went beyond symbolism and impacted Iraq positively?
Yes! There is so much horror to war that it’s easy to overlook the positive things that happen or to dismiss positive efforts as some sort of PR ploy, but there was one project I was involved...
“The privileged don’t want to hear about what life is like for those without...”
– Oh, for the love of dog: Here’s A Thought
Fort Worth Weekly: The Real Deal on Fake Dope →
“K2 is the most phenomenal thing that has ever happened to this business,” Walt said. “Even though it just started getting popular in the last month of 2009, it is definitely the best product of the decade.”
If the profits are fantastic for the people who sell K2, the news isn’t necessarily all that great for the buyers. It can cost up to twice as much as low-grade marijuana, and most users say...
Here's A Thought
Instead of offering book deals to people with substantial safety nets writing about how much they ‘learned’ from the experience of being unemployed, why not offer book deals to people who have actually experienced real poverty, as opposed to middle class folks who find themselves temporarily in bad circumstances (sometimes specifically for the purpose of landing a book deal since the...
New York Times: 9 Teenagers Accused of Bullying... →
Ms. Prince’s family had recently moved to the United States from a small town in Ireland, and she entered South Hadley last fall. The taunting started when she had a brief relationship with a popular senior boy; some students reportedly called her an “Irish slut,” knocked books out of her hands and sent her threatening text messages, day after day.
At South Hadley High School, which has about 700...
I has a public Twitter feed →
I forgot to mention it here. But, you know, if you’re interested in that kind of thing, you can follow it, and tell your friends, &tc.
ETA: Which is to say, yes, this is my way of shamelessly trolling for followers. On the plus side, I am shy so I will probably never mention this again, so I figure you can endure this on your dash for a few hours.
Feeling low.
tiaramerchgirl:
Yesterday I had a fallout with someone I had considered a close mentor over this blog. She and her closest felt that my occasional societal critiques and analysis of what happens in the burlesque world were “insulting and derogatory”. I had never insulted them personally on this blog or elsewhere, and indeed have taken great effort to promote and support them where I can, so I...
FWD/Forward: Back to the Pharmacy →
This is how that pharmacy interaction should have been going all along. It’s what happens every single time I pick up any other prescription, after all, including very costly and potentially dangerous prescriptions. I don’t know why getting this prescription was such a hassle before, although I strongly suspect that it had something to do with the fact that I was picking up birth control and birth...
Futility
Mr Bell: *looks meaningfully at the fridge*
Me: Your grey buddy has to come down from the loft before we can do kitty snacks.
Mr Bell: MEOW
Loki: *runs out from the other room, purring ecstatically*
Me: No, you guys, you have to get Shadow to come down first!
Loki: Mrrrp?
Mr Bell: MEOW
Me: Look, it's a pain in the ass enough feeding you lot three different things at mealtimes and trying to keep you out of each others' dishes. There is no way in hell I am feeding you at separate times because the only way I keep you from eating each others' food is by distracting you with your own food.
Mr Bell: MEEEEOW
Me: Seriously, tell Shadow to come down and I will be happy to feed you early. But I'll tell you right now he's not gonna come down until 'All Things Considered' comes on so you're just going to have to wait.
Loki: Mrrr?
Me: *gives up and crawls under the covers in the other room*
Recipe: Split Pea Soup
I am a huge fan of split pea soup and make it on a pretty regular basis. I am always tweaking the recipe to try and coax it into a state of perfection and I got pretty close yesterday.
Unfortunately, I don’t measure things, so this recipe is an approximation, but I think it’s enough to get a general idea.
You will need:
Two carrots, sliced into rounds.
One onion (I like yellow...
Guardian: Times and Sunday Times websites to start... →
The Times and the Sunday Times are the first UK papers to fully charge for digital content. While a daily payment will give users access to both sites, the weekly subscription will also include an e-paper and new applications. Access to the digital services will be included in the seven-day subscriptions of print customers to the Times and the Sunday Times.
“This is just the start. The...
The Age: Alarm at violence in aged care →
The Department of Health and Ageing was told of 1411 alleged assaults in nursing homes in 2008-09. Of those, 1121 involved alleged unreasonable force, 272 involved alleged unlawful sexual contact and 18 involved both.
In 2007-08 there were 725 reports of unreasonable force and 200 reports of unlawful sexual contact. The figures, contained in the 2008-09 report to Parliament on aged care, have...
this ain't livin': Food: The Problem Isn’t... →
And even that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: You can know about five a day, you can know from your experience with your body that you benefit from eating five servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day, and you can still not be able to access five a day. These campaigns are dreamed up by middle class folks in nice neighborhoods with lots of time and money and a big grocery store. Here in...
The Wonk Room: In Seeking To Strip Gays Of Hate... →
But in trying to strip gays and lesbians of their rights, the Oklahoma State Senate inadvertently cited the wrong section of the U.S. code. The bill stripped protections under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245, but protections for sexual orientation and gender identity is actually under Section 249.
Press Democrat: 'Smart' meters have security holes →
At the very least, the vulnerabilities open the door for attackers to jack up strangers’ power bills. These flaws also could get hackers a key step closer to exploiting one of the most dangerous capabilities of the new technology, which is the ability to remotely turn someone else’s power on and off.
The attacks could be pulled off by stealing meters — which can be situated...
In Which I Learn Something!
I just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I would recommend to anyone who is interested in medical ethics and the history of abusing people of colour in pursuit of medical research. There were parts of the book which made me a bit uncomfortable; I’m not entirely happy with the way that the author talked about some of Lacks’ descendants, presenting them almost...
Los Angeles Times: As more L.A. County children... →
As deaths among abused and neglected children have mounted in recent months, Los Angeles County supervisors and their aides have summoned child-welfare director Trish Ploehn to lengthy closed-door sessions to explain what’s gone wrong in her department and how she plans to fix it. “The safety and security of the children within our child-welfare system is the most important part of...
